According to the manufacturers Rain Spot 575 from Clay Paky is currently the only IP65 product on the market able to meet this requirement: it is provided with advanced optics, four interchangeable lenses with 18° to 46° beam angles, electronic focusing and an effects section consisting of four fixed gobos, four indexable rotating gobos, four rotating prisms, dimmer and immediate beam stop.
Koert Vermeulen, lighting and production designer of ACT Design, said: "The Mons - Les Grands Prés project was developed in parallel with the entry of the Rain Spot 575 onto the market, our client wanted impact lighting that would also characterize the outside of the building, turning it into an immediately recognizable reference point. What made this project very stimulating is the context in which it is located: Les Grands Prés is sited just outside the city centre, in a new area developed specifically for leisure and entertainment activities, very near to a multi-hall cinema and with many other projects in course of implementation"
Koert continued: "We looked around and saw that, in practice, there was no IP65 graphic effects projector available. The alternative would have been to make do with a wash light or to use IP20 effects projectors, which would have to be covered with inconvenient and ugly transparent protections to protect them against the weather. 38 Rain Spot 575's have been installed along the main façade of the structure (430m long x 10m high) and various combinations of effects and colour have been pre-programmed. In particular we have appreciated the decorative glass gobos and use them very often; when they are combined with colour variations they create a highly suggestive frosted effect."
The inside of the structure is also very rich with lights. Projectors with different colour temperatures have been used to create contrast atmospheres in the spaces, concentrating, in particular, on the access areas to the commercial centre and the refreshment zones. In total, inside, 134 CP Color 150 colour changers from Clay Paky have been used, as well as over 1300 conventional light points.
(Sarah Rushton-Read)
